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Windows 7: What To Do After Jan 2020

If you are asking, "How many can Linux run at the same time?", I think that depends on how much memory your computer has. I have Linux Mint 18.2 64-bit, with 4 GB of RAM in my computer, and I have never had any problem running a whole lot of stuff all at the same time.

Linux seems to use less RAM than Windows does.
My VMs run smoother in Linux Mint using VMware than they do in Windows 7.

Quote: Originally Posted by RoWin7

No, I was just wondering if Linux has substitutes for the most common Windows programs. I've never used it. But Lady Fitzgerald already replied.

I'd guess there are less programs overall.

The real issue is whether you need to use "Windows Only" software.
For example:
Do you need to use Photoshop, or can you accomplish your tasks using GIMP?
Do you need MS Office installed, or can you get by with the online version?

If you only browse the Internet on your PC, Firefox works in Linux and Windows.

Peter mentioned another program—Gimp—that can be used in both Windows and Linux. Gimp is free and is supposed to be as powerful as Photoshop although there is quite a learning curve for it. I've used it some but I'm having "fun" wrapping my mind around it. it is pretty popular, though.

VLC media player also works in Windows and Linux. I use VLC a fair amount.

Irfanview is a Windows batch graphics editing and filename renaming program that can be run in Linux using Wine. Many other Windows programs can also be run in Linux using Wine or something similar.

I've used a number of the Free open source applications available for both Linux and Windows and I would not compare Gimp with the current version of Photoshop CC, in any way - If however you have a limited budget and need to work with older PSD Photoshop files, or you just need a higher level image editor, then Gimp is a good option.

One thing that I have found with LibreOffice, and other Office clones, is that although they can be used to create documents of quality as high as Office itself, they do not appear to play well in a mixed environment. If you have a group of users using Word and some using LibreOffice there will be slight layout differences between the documents last edited in "the Other application" This could cause problems if for example you had two users working from a set of templates to create multiple documents - these would look different and may not meet the design constraints of the job brief. Of course if you just want to write the occasional letter and school project and will not be sharing with others LibreOffice will do an excellent job, and the cost factor is worthy of consideration.

I personally have the occasional need to create Vector Graphics and although it would be easier to integrate with my Adobe Photographers pack I cannot justify the cost of adobe Illustrator - I have found that the Open Source Inkscape meets my needs although the fact that it uses SVG files natively can cause some issues with integration into Photoshop as SVG files need to be rasterized when used in photoshop which means they lose their scalability

If you only browse the Internet on your PC, Firefox works in Linux and Windows.

Some sites that I visit Require the use of microsoft technologies that only work in Microsoft Browsers. Just out of interest is there any way to achieve this under Linux - a particular one needs to run Silverlight which requires Internet Explorer to run. Microsoft is of course depreciating Silverlight and other proprietaries in favour of HTML5, but not every content provider has caught up yet

I've used a number of the Free open source applications available for both Linux and Windows and I would not compare Gimp with the current version of Photoshop CC, in any way - If however you have a limited budget and need to work with older PSD Photoshop files, or you just need a higher level image editor, then Gimp is a good option...

From what I've read (I haven't used Photoshop although I did use Elements, which came with my flatbed scanner, briefly before I went back to the far easier to use graphics editors I currently use), GIMP UI is radically different from Photoshop, hence the learning curve, but pretty much is capable of most things Photoshop is capable of doing. I haven't dabbled with GIMP much so far because I found it to be completely unintuitive and doing the simplest operations was what I felt was needless complex.

Quote: Originally Posted by Barman58

...One thing that I have found with LibreOffice, and other Office clones, is that although they can be used to create documents of quality as high as Office itself, they do not appear to play well in a mixed environment. If you have a group of users using Word and some using LibreOffice there will be slight layout differences between the documents last edited in "the Other application" This could cause problems if for example you had two users working from a set of templates to create multiple documents - these would look different and may not meet the design constraints of the job brief. Of course if you just want to write the occasional letter and school project and will not be sharing with others LibreOffice will do an excellent job, and the cost factor is worthy of consideration...

The biggest problems with compatibility between LibreOffice (LO) apps and Microsoft Office app has to do with the two sets of programs using different Styles. I was able to get around the worst of those problems by making blank LO templates from blank MS Office blank pages. That cured the vast majority of problems I ran into at first. The remaining few I was able to come up with workarounds to deal with them. Fortunately, I rarely have to interact with MS Office users and, the occasional times I need to share documents, I use PDFs (LO can easily save to PDF). Btw, MS Office supposedly can be made to run in Linux (I've seen a few articles but haven't bothered with it yet).

As I mentioned before, many MS programs can be run in Linux using Wine or similar programs. Another option is to run Win 7 in a VM within Linux and run the MS programs that can't be replaced there.

Interesting that you mention Elements as I would compare Gimp to Elements - in it's latest form, Photoshop CC 2018 (or Photoshop 19.1.1 in the old style), has progressed a long way, it has accomplished Video editing, and 3D, but it's the AI behind some of the tools that is totally amazing the original content aware system for scaling, moving and healing was good but it's now just Wow!

I do not use it for everything as My own photography is covered by lightroom which can now get close to what photoshop was in terms of general pixel editing, and of course with Lightroom everything is totally and completely non destructive, and reversible including Jpeg files.

I have a totally Raw based workflow and If I need to do something in Photoshop I do as much as possible in Lightroom then send it to Photoshop do wat is required and it comes back as a new file Stacked with the Original file.

I think of the Lightroom files as a digital negative and can then produce variations as needed to publish.

The issues with Word and the clones is not a major one even in the case of multiple edited by different software, but with some media production it can be an issue for some companies

...The issues with Word and the clones is not a major one even in the case of multiple edited by different software, but with some media production it can be an issue for some companies

Companies should use the same software throughout the company so interoffice compatibility won't be a problem. I learned several years (decades?) ago a later version of MS Word could have compatibility issues with earlier versions and documents I created in the latest version were unreadable in the previous version, which is what all the people I was dealing with had, due to a feature the new version had that I was using. I found creating PDFs from my Word docs was the solution. PDFs are also cross platform so a PDF created in Windows could be read in Mac or Linux, etc.

LibreOffice is natively able to "save" directly to PDF and even has the option to embed the LO default document in the PDF so one can later edit the PDF by opening it in the LO app that created the PDF without the need for a conversion that could corrupt the document. That eliminates the need to keep the originating document on hand for possible future editing.

But really: I don't have my plans ready yet. I will most likely stay with Windows 7 for some time after 2020. But I love new hardware tech, I love playing games and there will come a time where new software and new hardware will simply no longer work on Windows 7. Until that time I will likely stay with my beloved OS and face an ever darker future.

On the other hand, maybe things do change for the better in the long run. I remember being in a somewhat similar situation when I ran Windows 2000. I loved this OS and disliked the changes MS made with XP so I stayed with Win2K for a long time. Only when Vista was released (which I really liked for its modern and hardware-accelerated user interface) I switched and became among the early adopters of the surprisingly unpopular Vista OS. But I had built a new high-end system for Vista so it ran perfectly. Because of this, I was quite late in upgrading from Vista to 7.

Hopefully, MS will sooner of later ditch the Metro-stuff and come with a true successor to the desktop OS Windows 7. I'm not too assured about this tho.

I won't install a Windows that comes with a handicapped GUI, built-in spyware and auto-installing 3rd party games and a GUI design that seems to predate Windows 95. So, in short, You'll see me on Windows 7 for quite some time.

"Here I stand and here I'll stay
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway"

I've used a number of the Free open source applications available for both Linux and Windows and I would not compare Gimp with the current version of Photoshop CC, in any way - If however you have a limited budget and need to work with older PSD Photoshop files, or you just need a higher level image editor, then Gimp is a good option.

If you want to do "intermediate" editing tasks (i.e. more complicated than the stuff you can do in Paint) GIMP is suitable.
It has a lot of the same tools that Photoshop has, however the Photoshop tools are better (and/or easier to use).

IMO, the main reasons are:

Adobe has written tools for image experts (probably based on their feeedback/requests)

There are lots of tutorials written by image experts explaining how to use the Photoshop tools

I use GIMP most of the time (99%+) but I occasionally start Photoshop CS6 if I need to use some "tricky" selection tools to achieve a result.

There are some things that are (IMO) better in GIMP than Photoshop CS6.
For example, you can directly type in coordinates (e.g. cropping) in GIMP.
Coordinate input is hidden in a sub-menu in Photoshop CS6.
I like the "Straighten" function.

Quote: Originally Posted by Barman58

One thing that I have found with LibreOffice, and other Office clones, is that although they can be used to create documents of quality as high as Office itself, they do not appear to play well in a mixed environment. If you have a group of users using Word and some using LibreOffice there will be slight layout differences between the documents last edited in "the Other application"

Some sites that I visit Require the use of microsoft technologies that only work in Microsoft Browsers. Just out of interest is there any way to achieve this under Linux - a particular one needs to run Silverlight which requires Internet Explorer to run. Microsoft is of course depreciating Silverlight and other proprietaries in favour of HTML5, but not every content provider has caught up yet

I've seen lots of complaining about Silverlight sites from people on Linux Forums.

As I've posted before (and as @Lady Fitzgerald also posted) I think the easiest solution would be to use a W7 VM for any "Windows Only" stuff (if you don't want to run W7, W8 or W10 as your main OS).

I've only come across a couple of things that don't like running in VMware.
It may be possible to tweak the configuration to get around those problems, but I haven't really looked into it.

I suspect that modern games won't run properly in a VM.

My old games run properly.
I have 1 game that will only run on an XP install (no VMs or newer versions of Windows).
DOSBox handles the really old games (i.e. from the 1990's, like Doom).

Quote: Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

From what I've read (I haven't used Photoshop although I did use Elements, which came with my flatbed scanner, briefly before I went back to the far easier to use graphics editors I currently use), GIMP UI is radically different from Photoshop, hence the learning curve, but pretty much is capable of most things Photoshop is capable of doing. I haven't dabbled with GIMP much so far because I found it to be completely unintuitive and doing the simplest operations was what I felt was needless complex.

If you are used to Elements/Photoshop I guess GIMP would be more difficult to use.

As I've mostly used GIMP, I find the Photoshop GUI difficult.

For example, in GIMP you can show all of the tools in the toolbox, but in Photoshop CS6 you can only see about 1/3 of the tools (I'm not used to the sections so I have to hunt through them).

Both of the interfaces are a bit cramped for my liking, but I guess image experts use multiple high resolution monitors (so they can move the tools out of the way).

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